


What a Man's Gotta Do

by minkhollow



Category: Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog
Genre: Community: lgbtfest, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-04-15
Updated: 2009-04-15
Packaged: 2017-10-02 07:50:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4191
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/minkhollow/pseuds/minkhollow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everyone's got villains they must face.  Captain Hammer has never thought this particular villain was very cool at all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What a Man's Gotta Do

**Author's Note:**

> Written for this year's LGBTfest, and quite a blast of a plot bunny to indulge. Veers away from canon somewhere in the midst of Act III. Thanks to Gehayi and Quinby for beta-reading.  
> I am not Joss Whedon; I'm just borrowing out of love (and because sometimes, even Captain Hammer needs to be vaguely sympathetic).

He gets the nickname in high school, after being made one of the football team's captains. There hadn't been much doubt he'd get the position; after all, there's no one else on the team who's as unstoppable as he is. A few of the teams they play end up with players who do everything they can to avoid being mowed down - which is probably safer for them, but he's gotta admit, it's less fun.

Not that it matters, since Captain Hammer's the school hero anyway. He could probably just stand on the field the entire game and have people cheering for him.

But then he finds himself in a compromising position, even though there's no one else involved. No one even knows, and he can't exactly bounce it off of anyone because then they _would_ know, and word would get out, and at the very least there'd be all kinds of bad 'tight end' jokes.

That's the best case, though, and he's counting on the worst case - and then, he'd lose everything. Queers don't play football, he knows that much from weight room talk, and quarterbacks especially don't have crushes on their wide receivers. He'd be laughed off the team, and then he'd lose everyone's respect, and he just can't bear that thought.

In an effort to see how much of it's in his head and whether he can change his own mind, he spends his senior year dating the entire varsity cheerleading squad - not all at once, if anything that'd be even weirder, but he dates every last one at some point. That gives him another kind of reputation entirely, one that he doesn't entirely deserve but one he'd much rather have than the truth.

The truth, it looks like, is that dating eleven girls in nine months isn't going to change his mind at all.

***

College is much the same thing. At least, it starts out that way.

The 'Captain Hammer' thing carries over, even though he's not a captain anymore; in fact, he never makes it past second string. First, the coach has it in his head that someone the opposing defense cannot physically stop is the kind of secret weapon he'd like to have for as long as possible. Then, midseason his sophomore year, his grades take a backseat to the weight room and his string of girlfriends (that he _is_ actually sleeping with, now, and it's still not helping), so he can't finish the season.

But the real kicker comes from the school-required physical, before he starts his junior year. The doctor actually lists his super strength as... well, super, and between that and the fact that he's never had even a minor injury in his life, the NCAA doesn't like it. Apparently there's a bylaw that bills meta-powers as an unfair advantage in collegiate sports.

He thinks it sucks, and so does the coach, but there's nothing they can do about it without completely killing the school's football program.

His grades do bounce back a little, without the excuse of football practice to pull him away from the work. There are still the girls, to the point where he loses count of how many he's had, but that still doesn't help - he can't seem to keep one longer than the time it takes to sleep with her once, and not _one_ of them feels right.

Well, except for the one who ends up halfway through gender transition by the time they graduate, but he doesn't know what to think about that, so he tends not to try.

Halfway through his senior year, he ends up seeing a psych major; he doesn't usually go for the science types, but she asked and she's hot, so who is he to say no? Except he knows who he is to say no - or would be, if he thought he could - so one day, while she's ordering lunch, he grabs one of her textbooks and looks it up.

There is something about what he's come to think of as his issue, much to his surprise, but it's not very comforting. He thinks maybe he would've been better off with what the book calls the old attitude; he'd almost rather be crazy and fixable than queer and defenseless against it.

He puts the book back before she comes back with her food, pretty sure they won't be seeing each other by the end of the week, and decides he doesn't like science very much after all, if all it can do is tell him he's unavoidably different.

***

He drifts around for a year after college, not sure what he wants to do with the rest of his life. He'd wanted to play for the NFL, but there are the same damn bylaws that cut his college football career short - that and he doesn't have the kind of college record that would get him any serious draft consideration. The military's really not his bag, even though he _definitely_ wouldn't be telling, not with how much trouble he goes to to avoid telling himself.

He signs on with a temp agency, and they bounce him around a few warehouses; the places appreciate the amount of heavy lifting he can do, even though they all balk at keeping him past the three-month assignments. Something about a spike in accidents involving the people around him, which is frankly ridiculous. After all, he _rescues_ the people before they can get hurt.

His first official act of heroism happens entirely by accident; he's just trying to have some lunch, on one of his days off, and he catches some punk mid-mugging. He pulls the punk off the woman and tosses him against the building on the other side of the alley - after reclaiming the woman's purse and handing it back to her, of course.

Her grateful gushing makes him feel like he just ran in a touchdown. When she finally gets around to asking for a name, all he can think to say is his old nickname - and so Captain Hammer is reborn.

He's got a knack for thrilling heroics, it turns out. The whole super-strength-and-invulnerability thing helps out a lot, and there is absolutely nothing in the world as good as the rush of being adored. Also, it brings the girls flocking in. Heroing is the normal kind of special, and he takes to it like a duck to water.

But his other... issue still wouldn't do him any favors, if anyone knew. The media defaults to 'next up: Who's gay?' on slow news days, and the superhero community, disorganised as it is, doesn't hold with that kind of thing among their ranks. (Sometimes he wonders why the heroes are so much less cohesive than the Evil League of Evil and the Henchmen's Union, but that's another story entirely.) On top of all that, it wouldn't really go with the image he's building up - an image that's slowly but surely taking over his everyday life.

He doesn't _need_ a secret identity, not when pretty much everything the public knows about him is a lie.

***

Dr. Horrible is pretty much everything a guy like Captain Hammer could ask for in a nemesis.

He's hard pressed to think of a better foil than a mad scientist, considering how little good science has done him. Not to mention, the guy's got it in his head that the world's in desperate need of some changing - not really a problem Captain Hammer can say he's seen - and he has a habit of spelling out his plans on his blog before he actually tries to implement them. It's almost like he's setting himself up for failure.

...And, okay, there's the thing where he's kinda cute, but Captain Hammer does his best to ignore that part. It's easier to just beat him up than try to think about the deeper implications. Either way, it wouldn't be any _fun_ to just have him locked up. He'd have to find someone else to pummel.

They've been annoying each other for a few years when Dr. Horrible tries to intercept the Wonderflonium van. It's no trouble at all to smash in the remote control; when that sends the van careening toward some girl who's dumb enough to be walking in the street rather than on the sidewalk, he gets her out of the way and sees her to a soft landing before worrying about the van again. It stops before he actually touches it, but that's all right. He doesn't think anyone in the area actually noticed that, so it looks like he saved the day anyway.

He's not really surprised when Dr. Horrible comes forward, but the fact that he's so worried about the girl is new. Captain Hammer would have thought that he'd withhold the heist, if he were that worried about her safety. In any case, it's a good excuse for some beating up until the girl emerges from the garbage pile and thanks him; then, he lets Dr. Horrible go, and switches gears to get some flirting in.

It's important, especially after that 'lacy, gently wafting curtains' thing - what the _hell_ was he thinking, saying something like that in front of his nemesis? If Dr. Horrible knows this girl, it's important that he not get any suspect information from her; he's going to have to draw it out as long as he can stand to. She's pretty okay, at least, so that won't be a hardship.

It's even less of one when it turns out he gets to make Dr. Horrible squirm just by talking to the girl.

***

Penny's the first girl who sticks around after sleeping with him once.

These days, the nature of Captain Hammer's life takes most of the other ones away. He's not sure what exactly did it in college, though his more paranoid side thinks they suspected, the morning after. He keeps a very close watch on himself, careful not to be anything less than a typical guy; he wouldn't even take his sweater vests to the dry cleaners', if he hadn't ruined one of his favorites trying to put it through his washing machine. The thing would probably be a tight fit on a Chihuahua, now.

But anyway. He doesn't get Penny's obsession with the homeless shelter, but helping out impresses her, and the faster the place is set up the more likely it is she'll want to talk about something else. After they do sleep together, she looks every bit as uncertain as any other girl he's had, but she's still around the next day. It makes him think he might be able to ask for something, the second time.

Except... it doesn't really work like that. He asks, but Penny just stares at him like he's grown a second head. He even tries putting on his earnest face, since this really does mean a lot to him, but that doesn't help as much as he'd hoped.

"I... need to go home," she finally says. "I need to. Think about some stuff."

"It doesn't - does it have to be tonight?"

Penny hesitates for a moment, but he knows the answer before she says it, just from that. "Yes. Yes, I think it does. I'll... see you later."

After she leaves, Captain Hammer sits down on his bed and curses at the ceiling. He's pretty sure he just blew it, and now there's no way of knowing _who_ she might tell, or what kind of damage that'll do. In any case, he's pretty sure he's blown any chance he might have had of just being normal - all because he can't shake the feeling that he should be the one who's fucked into the mattress, for a change.

***

The shelter opening thing starts out all right, but then it slides downhill into disaster territory; all Captain Hammer has to do to ensure that is open his mouth, apparently. Seems it's one of those nights where his brain-to-mouth filter isn't fully engaged, and... well, even _he_ can't believe most of what's coming out. He usually knows better than to tell people he doesn't particularly like what he thinks of them.

Or to announce the particulars of his relationship du jour, assuming Penny hasn't already called it off, to a room full of adoring fans and reporters. But for some damn reason, he can't seem to make himself _stop_ \- maybe that beer before he came over was a bad idea - to the point where it's almost a relief that someone else opts to stop him.

On the other hand, Dr. Horrible's got him frozen in place - seriously, he can't even blink - and that's just making the night that much worse. It's not exactly a fair match, when he can't defend himself. He almost has to admire how much better that freeze ray's working now than it did the last time he saw it.

Dr. Horrible carries on for a minute or so - about what, Captain Hammer's not really listening - then turns his attention back to the stage. "As for you, Captain," he says, "I have one question. Do you even know who you are anymore?"

He has absolutely no idea where that's going, so it doesn't matter that he can't react; he'd probably only manage a confused blink anyway.

"You say you're only interested in helping people when you put more people in danger than _I_ ever have, you call yourself a role model when you can't get out of the closet for all the girls between you and the door - I don't know, man. I really think you could do a better job."

Okay, _now_ it matters that he can't move, because - seriously, did Dr. Horrible just _out_ him in front of everyone? That is not cool on so many levels, he doesn't know which one to start with. From the sound of things, the audience doesn't know where to start either; he's not sure whether that's a good thing or not.

Dr. Horrible shrugs. "I'm just saying, that can't be healthy. You might want to get the hell out of there." The freeze ray sputters, and Dr. Horrible gives up his monologuing in order to have a look at it; somehow, by the time it's shut off and Captain Hammer's recovered enough to move, Dr. Horrible's disappeared. He leaves the stage without another word, not ready to face everyone yet, not noticing that someone's following him until they catch his arm.

"What-- oh." It's only Penny; he doesn't need to bristle as much as he'd thought at first. "Hi."

"He was right, wasn't he?" she says. He's not ready to admit it out loud, so he just nods.

"I thought he might be." She sounds a lot less freaked out than he thought she would be, but then again, maybe she already did the freaking out. "Really, I don't care about that part, do what you want, but - did you _have_ to say what you did?"

"...No. I didn't. Sorry."

"Well, you're not a _total_ jerk, at least. But I think we're both going to be better off if we stop dating."

He'd kind of thought that was coming, but it never gets easier to hear. "Probably. I'll... see you around, I guess?"

"Maybe. Take care of yourself."

After she leaves, he slips out the back door and goes home. He still can't face the public; he's got his private reaction to figure out first, and possibly a scientist's head to bash in.

***

He ignores the media fallout, as best he can, and just lets it happen; it probably doesn't help the issue die down any faster, but he's not ready to hold a press conference or whatever. On the one hand, that strikes him as a really corny way out of this, but on the other, acting like nothing happened will just keep people talking.

He stays in for a few days, but finally runs out of food; he was due to get groceries the day after the shelter thing anyway, but decided it wasn't that urgent. Now it is, though, so he has to take his chances.

The funny thing is, he doesn't get nearly as many suspicious looks as he thought he would. He gets a few, yes, but for the most part people just treat him like they always have - or, at the worst, like he's just another person. Considering he's already gotten a few _very_ disapproving emails from some of LA's other heroes, that's a relief.

A couple days later, he's feeling brave enough to go out for the sake of getting out of the house - and who should he happen across, while on his walk, but Dr. Horrible in his street clothes. But before he can go for the well-earned pummeling, Dr. Horrible's got his hands up in a classic surrender gesture.

"Okay, wait," he says, "first, if you beat the crap out of me now, it's going to look like you're going after someone for no good reason. Second, I'm willing to bet you've got questions, and I'll have a much harder time answering them if I'm unconscious. Temporary cease-fire?"

Captain Hammer hesitates, not sure whether he can take that at face value. But he has to figure, if harm were coming his way, it'd be here by now. "All right. But the second you pull something--"

"I'm not dressed for it. Give me _some_ credit."

"In that case... why did you say what you did?"

Dr. Horrible shrugs. "I don't care _who_ you're hitting on, as long as it's not me."

"Bullshit. You couldn't have faked being that upset about the girl if you'd tried."

"Well, yes, but that's not my immediate point. You're not the first gay superhero, you won't be the last, and times are changing. People need to get over the mental block that says the two things can't coexist, and that won't happen if no one steps up and does it first. So either I've ended your heroing career and you're out of my hair, or I ultimately did you a favor, but changed the world in the process. Either way, I can live with it."

Captain Hammer eyes him for a few moments. "How did you even know? Did she tell you?"

"...No. Was she supposed to? I put the pieces together myself - you've certainly let out enough rope to hang yourself on the point, over the years."

"...I guess." He doesn't have to like the point to know it's perfectly true; much as he tries to police himself, sometimes the lacy curtains get right past him anyway. "But still. You - it wasn't very nice."

Dr. Horrible snorts. "Even if we ignore how often you've let me take the heat for _your_ putting civilians in danger, I'm not usually accused of being a nice guy. And actually, that was probably too nice for the League. They were hoping to see a murder. Probably won't let me in, now, but I figured the creative route was a little better for everyone."

"What about the girl?"

"...Whether Penny decides she's interested in me or not, she deserves better than being someone's beard."

Captain Hammer blinks. "If... I wanted a beard, I would just grow one."

"Not that kind of beard. Look it up when you get home. Anyway - I can let her go, if she's happy. I think you missed how hard she was trying to convince herself."

"Possible." Probable, actually, since he was trying to convince himself there was something more there than annoying his nemesis - same as with every girl he ever dated, really. "And... you're sure you don't want me hitting on you?"

Dr. Horrible shudders. "_Yes_. Even if I did swing that way, I just - I am completely and positively _not_ interested."

"Fair enough. And it would just complicate things - not that I know if I'm sticking this out."

"You're even more of an idiot than I thought if you don't. What good would it do if you backed down now that you have to face it?"

Captain Hammer raises an eyebrow. "What news would that be to you, since you think I don't do any good anyway?"

"...Okay, in that case, look at it as a challenge. I'm sure the last thing you want is for people to think you're turning into some kind of wimp."

"Well, if you put it like that, it is _on_."

"I thought it might be." Dr. Horrible smiles, and turns to leave; Captain Hammer lets him go without making a fuss. There's no point in wrecking a perfectly civil conversation, now that they've had one.

_Next_ time, he'll bash his head in.

***

He never quite gets the chance, though. Dr. Horrible starts pulling out of the LA villainy scene, slowly but surely; he's still posting to his blog, but it seems a lot less facts-based now. Captain Hammer wonders about it at first, but figures maybe Penny gave him a chance after all, in some form or other. He doesn't look for a new nemesis; one will come to him eventually, he's sure.

In the meantime, he's been given a challenge, and he fully intends to stand by that. He doesn't deny the outing, but he doesn't work up the courage to _confirm_ it until a month after the fact; there's a world of difference between the two, in his head, but it starts to feel like he's taking the easy way out if he doesn't just say it himself. Otherwise, he does his best to act like nothing's changed - because really, it hasn't. Admitting he's queer doesn't mean he has to suddenly turn into a flaming wimp.

The media can't stop talking about it, but they were still bringing it up on slow news days anyway. Some of the city's other heroes are still highly displeased, especially when one of the new girls to the job decides she's following Captain Hammer's lead. (The media can't stop talking about _that_, either.) But otherwise, most of the civilians act like nothing's changed; he'd even go so far as to say a few of them are delighted.

Much as he hates to admit it, maybe Dr. Horrible was right when he said the world was changing.

He takes a break from sleeping with anyone. There's no point in the string of girls, now that he's actually owning the label, and... well, now it's something he doesn't want to screw up. There's a lot more to worry about, especially considering it's a minor miracle he hasn't caught anything nasty from his habits to date. Maybe it's part of the invulnerability thing, he doesn't know.

But anyway. He also signs back up with a temp agency, largely to pass the time until a new nemesis emerges from the woodwork. One of the warehouses he worked for before he started heroing takes him back, on the condition that he not go out of his way to engineer near-accidents. He does what he can, but there are a couple of times where he forgets himself; still, no one's actually hurt, and the warehouse supervisors seem pleased that it's not happening as often as it did. They don't chase him out before the assignment expires, and they even say the safety inspection that happens about halfway through his assignment had been on the books for months before he signed up.

He's not entirely sure he believes that, but he's willing to give them the benefit of the doubt, unless and until he's called up on the carpet for something.

The day of the inspection, he's actually doing a pretty good job of keeping himself in check. He's never considered it showing off, when he takes on the heavy-lifting things, but he tries to keep that to a minimum so as not to completely confuse the inspectors. But he forgets himself just after his lunch break and hefts a couple of big boxes into place without the aid of the forklift; by the time he realises his mistake, there's a half familiar voice saying, "Well. That's not something I ever expected to encounter in a place like this."

Once Captain Hammer figures out where the voice came from, he's glad he already put the boxes down. He would have dropped them on his foot, otherwise, and that's never a fun experience.

"Oh my God," he says, "last time I saw you, you still had breasts." Then his brain catches up with his mouth, and he facepalms. "Sorry. Anyway, you didn't drastically change your name while you were at it, did you?"

The safety inspector snorts. "Nice to know fame hasn't gone to your head or anything. And no, I didn't. Not much point when everyone was calling me Chris anyway."

"Fair enough. What've you been up to, other than... finishing what you started?" This is really weird to see, but he was more comfortable around Chris than any of the other girls he's dated; maybe, as strange as the whole thing is, there's a good reason for that.

"Work, paintball games when people are free for them, the usual. And the occasional date, but it's really hard to find guys who aren't freaked out when I get to the full explanation."

Captain Hammer blinks. "Not girls?"

"No, that was never the part that felt wrong. Just the packaging on my end. I figured we both needed a little time to get ourselves figured out - even though in your case, you pretty much had to be shoved into it."

"Yeah, well. I wanted to be normal."

Chris just looks at him (the 'you have got to be kidding me' face hasn't suffered from time or the transition). "You always _were_ normal, dumbass. If anything, I'm more screwed up than you are."

"No, you're not. You adjusted better, once you figured out what you wanted."

"That's debatable." Chris shrugs. "In any case, you're here now, shoved or not, and most of the world still seems to think you're fabulous."

"...You sure that's the right word, considering?" He'd ended up reading a little, after trying to figure out what Dr. Horrible meant by the beard comment; turned out there was a whole world of double entendres he'd missed in his efforts to look as manly as possible.

Chris laughs, and that opens a whole new floodgate of confusion. He thought Chris had a pretty nice laugh before testosterone got anywhere near the equation, and now... well, now, he's inclined to call it more than pretty nice. The whole situation's still more than a little weird, but now it feels more like when he was pretending he didn't have a crush on his wide receiver than anything else.

"Okay, I'll give you that one. Anyway, I should get back to... inspecting. You want to get lunch sometime this weekend?"

"I... I'd like that." He's not at _all_ in control here, and that might be the weirdest thing of all. But this won't get any less weird unless he faces it head-on, and at the very least, he'd kind of like to catch up properly.

Chris grins, pulls an old printout off a nearby box, and writes something on it. "Call me later. We'll figure out the details then. Don't drop those boxes on anyone."

He'd bristle at the parting shot from just about anyone else, but for some damn reason, he can't stop grinning - and so Jack Williams, better known to the world at large as Captain Hammer, is reborn.


End file.
